7 Most Devastating TV Deaths

by 8:59 AM PST, December 11, 2013

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When done right, a TV show not only earns your loyalty but your emotional investment; making the character's triumphs, your triumphs, their failures, your failures and their pain, your pain. Nowhere is that more evident than in the tears that rain down when a character falls.

And while death is as commonplace on television as opening credits, every now and then, the way a character is dispatched brings you past the point of a single shed tear and into full on ugly crying. Typically this tragedy is the result of two important factors: it's a character you care deeply for and their death brings out the rawest in their on-screen survivors.

So while some TV deaths are cool (ie, Gus Fring), others are downright cruel, and these are the seven most painful in recent memory.